To think this is not the norm for "lots of people"?

[fedupwiththis22]

DP and I have a 16 month old. He works long shifts, lots of 6am starts and 9pm finishes, and weekends etc. I'm starting to feel like I spend so much time alone I'm almost a single mum (yes, I know I'm not because we have a 2nd income etc, but that's just how I feel because of how much time I spend alone with my DD).

I mostly just get on with it but this morning as he left for work again it really got to me, so I said I'm feeling really down about it all, I just want a normal family life where we get the occasional day to spend together, He said "lots of families don't see each other on weekends due to work".

I disagreed with him and said I really don't think how little time we spend together is the norm!

Anyway. AIBU to think one day a month together as a family on average is not the norm?

Also - AIBU to really miss him and family time?? I feel lonely so much of the time. I love my DD so much, but we had her to be a family and now we are hardly functioning as one. 😣

Thanks everyone for your replies. I will read through them now my DD is settled for bed. It's been a very long day today... I've been drowning in housework and shopping and looking after DD, and now she's in bed I just feel lonely. 😢 Only 2 more hours to go by myself ....

Hi OP

I need to tell you what a man said to me in hospital. I was taking my aunt for a scan and while she was in there he said to me …
”I lost my wife to cancer 3 years ago, and one thing I deeply regret is not spending precious time with her, all I did was work to give us nice things, but now I realise time was so much more precious than money”

Me too. My husband works hard and has to do some Saturdays. He does a minimum of Saturdays, comes home as early as he can and his work have also helped by taking him off the roster for a few months after dc3 was born. I would never have married someone who worked away or in the military, I am not up for taking on the bulk of the family load by myself. The risk here is he thinks he’s special because he’s bringing in more money and places no value on the op having to do the housework and parenting while he works. Does he leave early op? I’d consider booking some solo time to think next weekend, and leaving a list of housework to be done.

@fedupwiththis22 I'd chat to him &
try to get on the same
page/ compromise and if that does not work I'd book appointment with Relates counselling. I've been myself and it is much easier to talk when the conversation is s bit 'guided' and the right questions are asked e.g. what is important to you/ him and why. You can start going by yourself at first and I am guessing he will join and even
if he doesn't then it will be beneficial for you I think. They are experienced counsellors who helped many other couples with many other issues and so I think they will be able to help you too. Good luck

@Whatwouldscullydo hahaha I am also the suspicious one lol

Yeah the priorities changes when the lil ones arrive and unless it was a choice of having roof over our heads/ food on the table I'd not have my DH working away or overtime. Looking after lil one is bloody hard work ( yes rewarding of course) and the first few years they need sooo much attention that two parents are needed in order to have some balance.

When I hear that ppl with young kids work away I am like 'well, they took the easy option' but the again it is sad that not everyone sees where the priorities are...lil ones dont care if they have 2nd hand bike or borrowed toys. They care about cuddles, story time and feeding ducks as mentioned earlier.

There's no point to a life spent making money for someone else and not being able to enjoy your family, friends or free time. Success at work only is an unsuccessful life.

comparing yourself to other families is the biggest waste of emotions
I’m a single mum and I’ve had to let go of that one , hard !

but I get it , you are in a small
family but feel like you arnt

but it also sounds like this is taking up a huge amount of your emotional energy and attention
and playing on your mind a lot

id say there is more to family time than ‘days out ‘
and that maybe some baby steps are needed to get you feeling happier and enjoying the evenings and mornings you DO have as a family

maybe he’s so relieved that you have money coming in and financial stability that this currently overdoes the family time ? maybe he thinks his role is to provide and that overrides everything else ?

he sounds decent , and maybe you need a chat about what’s important , what will make everyone happy and to listen and not judge , both ?

What jumps out at me is that for whatever reason, he’s very uncomfortable with the dynamic where you are a threesome. Even on the rare moments all three of you are in the house together he encourages you to go elsewhere. Now on one level that could just be him being nice, and it would be very difficult to complain about him offering you a break! But it’s something to wonder about.

It’s definitely true that some people prefer to be in work than looking after a baby. Is that the case with him? It might it be the case that he’s irrationally worrying about money with the switch to parenthood. Or - and this is a tough one - that he feels distant from you.

I think all you can do is remind him that the most important asset you have is your marriage and he is neglecting it. It would be totally reasonable to ask for one protected weekend a month. He may enjoy being the rota saviour though, and you may have some difficulty getting him out of the habit of agreeing to last minute requests.

You are in the right here. What you are asking is completely reasonable. @lottiegarbanzo’s point about him not being the unilateral head of the household is right - if as a couple you agreed you needed to be out at work 7 days a week with no family time to keep the wolf from the door that would be one thing, but it’s not necessary and accumulating money at the expense of happiness is no way to live.

I couldn’t cope with this, it would end our marriage. If you can’t pay the mortgage unless he works this much that’s one thing, if he’s just trying to build a nest egg that’s another.
family time is important - it’s what makes you a family!
mid tell him how unhappy you are, how it’s affecting your marriage. He needs to work less and spend more time with you two

Nope, me and my DH work 9 til 5. They even wrote a song about it. Common work pattern. We might do a little later to finish something. Weekends are work-free.

Your husband's schedule is awful but if it's always been this way it will be next to impossible now to make him change.

I feel like I'm reading something I've posted!
We have a 15 month DS and my DH works at the hospital very long hours, we hardly see each other, I work 4 days a week. His hours are long anyway but he works overtime to top up salary as the cost of everything is going up. It's a tough situation as it's a choice of being financially secure or soend time together worrying about money.
When I complin to him about his hours he says he's doing it for us (as we're also in the process of selling up to buy a more practical house).
I can't offer much advice I'm afraid, just to let you know that you're not alone.

One solution @fedupwiththis22 is to offer the financial burden by seeing how you can earn more money so he can work less?

I am sure you can do without the extras when the extras are there but when you are just breaking even it's a different story

I'll start by saying I've read bits of, but not the whole thread.

I wanted to chime in as there are a lot of similarities to our family (but also some key differences)! My DH works incredibly long hours, very very irregular and can be working and living away for weeks to even months at a time. He's self employed in a very unusual and demanding career. Even when he is at home his phone is glued to him as he can get a phone call and have to be out the door within 15 minutes.

This has been our life for years and before we had our children so I knew exactly what our life was going to be like and had plenty of practice being on my own before children were born. I like to think of myself as an 'often solo parent' as I think it describes our unique situation the best, however I don't know any other mums who live like this in real life (DH has some colleagues with wives/children but they're scattered all over the globe). Most 'normal' people think our life is a bit bonkers, I have worried and do worry about the impact on our children but have come to the conclusion that this is just their life, the childhood that they get and that they might miss out on some 'normal' experiences but we also make sure that they have amazing experiences too.

Our life (though different) works for us (it has to!), DH and I have a very good relationship, we are a strong team and we often talk about our family as a 'team' to the children who all have to row together! If you can't change the work or the hours here are some ways of the top of my head that we make it 'work' especially as your DD gets older and more aware.

• We use a lot of facetime for the children with DH, sometimes it isn't possible so we also have videos/voice recordings of him saying goodnight/their special bedtime rhyme they say and him telling them how much he misses them etc.
• When he is away for any big events/ long periods of time I will film and edit a 'vlog' style video or set of videos about what we are up to. This is a hobby though and I don't share them publicly but we LOVE watching them back as a family.
• We buy DH tickets to everything we plan, but we always know he might not make it and we just swallow the cost.
• We are very spontaneous, we will wake the kids up at the crack of dawn, stick them in the car and drive to disney for the weekend because for whatever reason we know DH is home for 3 days and almost everything can be done last minute now a days. Yes it can be more expensive but its a 'work hard -play hard' type thing, we're not rolling in cash but imo its part of our lifestyle, if they have to miss out on so much time with their DH then we try to really make the most of time with him. Quality time over quantity time in this house! This has also included random late night drives for mcflurries, breakfast picnics in a local beauty spot and 'I don't feel like bedtime right now, who fancies the beach instead?' so it doesn't have to be expensive.
• When he's away until a specific end date we will make a visual calendar and plan specific things into this time.
• in terms of our relationship we have a mutual understanding that neither of us could do what the other does. He is very open that he could not 'solo parent' in the way I do and will be very vocal about this through texts/phone calls/ in person. I am vocal about how I couldn't cope being away from home/children and will tell him often how much I appreciate/notice how hard he's working. He is very clear that it is our money and our hardwork because by him being away I have to work just as hard as he does for our kids.

If you are feeling like this (and I know I have over the years!) then it's time for some calm, open and loving communication. This set up is not for everybody and needs a lot of extra hardwork to keep a healthy relationship and family life going.

Wishing you all the best!

i used to see dh on a sunday
he worked the rest of the week
6 days

It's not the norm for lots of people. But it is the norm for lots of other people.

his saying it won’t change anything. Do you actually need the money? Go over a budget together. Are there things you could cut? The baby is young. Maybe better to find some time for you and your husband and not just family time. Keep your marriage strong.

But he does get overly tunnel visioned with regard to money. There are other priorities imo and it's not all about cash. That's where we clash.

My DH has a tendency to this too.

One thing I observed is the more money he had the worse he was. He didn’t chill out, it meant he had more to lose.

As others have said he is not head of the house even though he is acting as such and you need to tackle it.

We laugh about it now —and I book the holidays because I don’t like lots of cockroaches—

@fedupwiththis22 give him the ultimatum of: “you either do a maximum of 40hrs a week or we’re splitting up. You’re barely here and I feel like a single mum. The extra money isn’t worth it if we don’t spend enough time together as a family.”

YANBU. My dh used to work night shift so I'd see him for about 15 mins in the morning, half an hour at tea time then that was it. It was awful. His work has stopped doing night shift now and he was upset but it's the best thing that could've happened for our relationship.

My OH works away from home for 3 weeks at a time. It’s how we make ends meet.

This really resonates with us. 14mo, DH works 6 days a week. I work 4. We work opposite shifts, he has DD during the day and works afternoons and evenings. I have her afternoons and evenings. We do cross over once a week- not a weekend. On that day, we have 'family day'. I often feel how you do. Some things that have helped... a national trust membership, annual zoo pass, swimming lessons, baby group etc. Just trying to keep busy and have some adult conversation too. I hope I feel less lonely once DD can hold a conversation.

Did you discuss parenting roles before you had kids.

he has assume the old fashioned breadwinner role - assuming that he can work very long hours because the child is primarily your responsibility. I assume he would not be happy if this was reversed.

don’t get me wrong, some people are happy to adopt very traditional gender roles but both parties have to agree to it.

too many men just assume they don’t have to do 50% of the parenting. Has he assumed or did your agree?

I think this is pretty normal no?
When kids were wee DH worked Mon-Fri, I then worked Fri, Sat, Sun. Was shit but meant we didn't need childcare.

It's hard to give specific advice because it's not clear what OP's family's exact financial situation is. A lot of posters are clearly projecting their own finances on to her. For some, extra work is just a means of adding more money into an already affluent life. For others, extra work is what keeps your head above water. And in between there's every possible circumstance, with the added factor that with the cost of living crisis about to hit hard in the winter, it's only sensible to build up savings - you might not need the money now but in the months or years to come you'll be glad you prioritised work.

But OP's feelings are valid and understandable, of course. Resolving that is all about communication - clear but also generous. The worst bits of advice in this thread are the adversarial, accusatory ones. "He's making excuses, he wants to opt out from family life" etc (as if work is somehow the easy option?). If there's any truth to that, flinging it around will get OP nowhere. And if she actually thinks that about her husband she may as well start divorce proceedings because the respect in the relationship is dead.

I get the impression that the problem is less the long hours and more that OP feels her husband dismisses her when she tells him how she feels. So maybe just... tell him that. Instead of presenting it as a practical problem (how to reduce his hours, which he can't or won't do), tell him what you need from him is emotional support. To feel heard and validated and to be on the same side. Maybe his working hours won't change immediately, but maybe you can start aiming towards a longer-term solution or a specific goal - saving a specific amount, say. But feeling like a team again has to come first and that's an emotional issue, not necessarily a practical one. It's OK to ask for your emotions to be validated.